Author's Note:
Hey there, it's still me, Meiko. I underwent a rebranding; don't worry.

Anyway, coming to the reason you are here... I, after several weeks of writing and editing, present to you the third chapter of this story. More precisely, the third chapter of Act 1 of this story. Read on for further elaboration regarding the Acts.

This has been a doozy. This new chapter was difficult for me to write, so thank you all for your patience.

Important note:
I have altered the fact that Nick was only allowed to call Judy as a favour/leniency and have since changed minor wording in chapter one to reflect this change.

Please read the chapter below to learn how most of the ZPA functions. Excuse this slight change of plan; I've been hard at work realising all of this story, and some, very few parts are bound to have a rough edge or two.

Chapter Summary:
Nick is stuck between a rock and a hard place. What will he choose, given two bad choices?

Acknowledgements:
Extra special thanks to Loki as my external beta reader for this chapter. We beta-read a chapter of the other's work, and I can recommend his original Omegaverse story. Please visit this story on Archive Of Our Own to get a direct link to him.

As always, huge thanks to all my beta readers on my Discord:
- Dawnless
- itzmasterz
- plank_space
- Pompombojam
- Toboe
- Vicarious

"...ilde! Mister Wilde, are you alright?" His ears perked; a voice meandered its way through to him. He sat on a rather cushy surface... a... chair with some sort of pedal close to the top. The surface in front of him was wooden. Very smoothly polished, no edges to speak of, his paws found. It was... a desk? Yeah. He glimpsed at the device before him with half-lidded eyes—his laptop. A document was open with all sorts of squiggly lines drawn in neat rows and some square images of blue and grey.

"Wha..." he attempted, mildly looking around as vision started to manifest.

"Max, would you be so kind as to wake Mister Wilde, please?" the same voice uttered.

Just as he lift his head up toward the sound, a paw of orange fur snaked its way around his back, resting on his left shoulder, engulfing it. Shaking his head more vigorously, he glanced to the right to squint at a lion. Orange and white fur, hazel eyes, typical mane, well built, too. 'Max,' his brain told him. Oddly enough, he had something akin to a misaligned hyphen of black fur stretching across half his forehead. His gaze cast lower. Oh, but why did he wear a ZPA tank top?

"Mister Wilde. If I may have your attention, please." His head snapped around; the insistent voice came from before him, somewhere within a metre, he guessed.

Oh, so it wasn't a dream...

"Yes, of course, undoubtedly, sir," Nick rushed without even being able to make out who said that exactly; it was some kind of furred blot who spoke to him.

His vision began clearing, the objects around him gaining outlines and proper colours as spacial awareness and object permanence returned gradually.

Ah, yes, the ZPA. Max was to his right, and Rebecca to his left. The tigress turned her blue, slitted pupils toward him briefly before turning back, immediately resuming what she had been typing before. With sierra fur interspersed with black stripes, and a bristly-tipped tail, she looked like any tigress, the ZPA shirt further letting her blend into the crowd of more-or-less equally large mammals. A streak of white ran diagonally across her entire face as if a grave scar. Her blue eyes were clear, and her fur had just the right amount of shine to it, being remarkably clean.

Looking past her, he saw Sam, who swayed his head to Nick after he had stared for several seconds without a response. The tan-coloured cervine scrutinised him, his coat uniform. He had rather intricate antlers, not the ones his father might have, but not the ones a deer in his twenties might have either. His gaze was seeing, watching, pinning, knowing. It was Nick who looked away.

"So, would you like to share your thoughts on the topic?" the what-was-now-clearly-an-anteater questioned with the utmost certainty of receiving an answer. He was clad in a white blazer with the letters 'ZPA' written on the right atop his breast pocket, which held three pens or pencils or makers or whatever they were. Besides his greenish eyes, his face was added to by two stubby ears and a very elongated muzzle, like a short trunk. His fur consisted of carbon-grey strands, with some black spots mixed in. He couldn't be teaching anything related to exercise; his plump stature made that obvious. Well, he could be, but that wouldn't be setting a good example. No, he didn't remember Lester supervising the tactical exercises or the environmental training. Lester, yeah, that was his name.

The distorted lines of his document were legible now, and he oscillated from studying them to scrutinising the massive whiteboard Lester had his back to.

When his answer didn't come quick enough, their teacher decided to 'help' him out. "As you know, we were just talking about the individual components of the ZPA radio. Would you like to elaborate on how one is supposed to disassemble this contraption while avoiding electrocution?"

Of course, that was the subject today. But hold on, really? A trick question? Seriously? "Sir, you're not supposed to disassemble the radio. Both the label on the radio and the manual state that. Only the ZPD's electricians are allowed to perform maintenance on any such devices. Should they not be available or unable to perform their duty, the device in question is to be packaged and sent off-site to perform maintenance." The words came almost as the textbook described the process, confusing him greatly.

"Very good, Wilde. You forgot one thing, though," Lester told the class, striding side to side before coming to a stop at the standing table, both paws braced against it, the only other furnishing in the front fourth of the room beside the whiteboard mounted to the wall. It had various paraphernalia on top, among them his bag, his laptop, as well as a bottle of water. "What form is to be requested and handed to your supervisor in such instances of an electronic device malfunction?"

"Uh..." He thought for a bit, rubbing his forehead. Yet, not five seconds later, words assembled themselves and heeled. "Form 36-B applies in cases of 'random' damage or malfunctions. Form... form 36-A would be for damages incurred due to negligence, while form 36-C would apply when the damage resulted as a direct consequence of an order of a superior or as collateral while on duty."

It was as if he internalised it all, having used all that information for ten years, every waking hour. The thing was, however, that it wasn't like that at all. It was honestly just... uncanny at this point, and he tried not to acknowledge what had just happened.

Lester's face barely changed, but even that was enough for a mammal with such skills as himself to pick up. The anteater didn't show it before or after he took a sip from his bottle right then, but he was slackjawed. The class, now that he looked around, on the other hand, had no such aptitude for hiding emotions; muzzles opened and closed, words exchanged, and pages scrolled through to double-check whether he'd been right.

Lester fixed Nick, who fixed him right back. After an amount of time which Nick felt to be way more than comfortable, Lester broke their staring match in favour of striding about again. "I'm impressed... Really. Well done." The cadets first stared at him, then at the teacher, and then everyone pretended nothing at all had happened and that this was just a regular Friday. Said mammal soon continued with a slow and soft voice. "But Wilde... please take care of your sleep regimen outside of my classroom, will you? I don't want you to miss out on the lesson, and neither do I want you running savage due to mental fatigue."

"Is that clear?" Lester ascertained, rotating 45° with a single step, his paws behind his back, to look at the fox in the front-most row.

"Yes, Mister Lester," he replied simply.

With that, the situation seemed resolved, their teacher strolling back to the whiteboard, enlarging an image by using both paws to take hold of the two opposing corners of its window, drawing them in opposite directions.

Now that that's over with, he could form clear thoughts. When the fox swayed his head once more, he finally took in his surroundings and fully recalled where he was and how he had gotten there.

The rectangular room was divided by a spine which led from the entrance door of elegant white-painted metal at the back, to the stage-like area at the front where Lester was currently teaching. To either side stood precisely four rectangular tables with four height-adjustable bar-stool-like seats each, all mostly of a similar—if not the same—reflective and smooth, white metal the door was made of. Separating the first two long tables on a side from the last two was a small gap. Of the four dorm rooms worth of cadets the classroom could hold, not one quarter held eight mammals, a full dorm's worth. Their quarter only held Max, Rebecca, Sam, and himself. At a rough glance, he guessed they were about 15 in total.

As the lesson continued, he witnessed Max surfing the web more often than not while Rebecca followed the lesson attentively, as did Sam, though he often stopped listening in favour of flipping the pages of one book or another he had with him. Among them, he could see truly marvellous epics such as 'Codes Across Countries. The international guide to proper radio etiquette', 'A History On The ZPD's Radio And Its Quirks', and 'Radios, Walkie-talkies, And The Likes. An essay on broadcasting technology.' Literally no one else had a book on their desk; they didn't use books in any of the lessons so far; all were digital. Seems he got it from the Library. That was beside the fact that what was to be found in those books was much more elaborate than what they needed to know—Nick was sure of that. Sam read in the third, as the two others were stacked and almost as high as his laptop in its current unfolded state.

The fox was asked several more questions, but what continued to baffle him was that he could answer almost all of them. Sure, they had gone through most of what Lester asked of him in prior lessons, but Nick didn't do much more than listen and note.

It wasn't like he studied after class; he wasn't here to graduate.

Nick only paid half a mind, too; there were much more pressing matters on his mind. When had he fallen asleep? Why had he fallen asleep? It was only their second double lesson that day! It wasn't even noon! But, more importantly, how had he even known the answer to Lester's question? That fucking anteater had thrown him another curveball; they hadn't even discussed forms yet; Rebecca, to his right, was still in the chapter previous. Despite that, he'd known the answer almost perfectly.

Perhaps he'd heard it in his years on the street? That seemed plausible. He already didn't like where this train of thought was headed. Said train derailed, imploded, and exploded all at the same time, somehow—he felt like groaning out loud. His sleep-deprived state was caused by something he'd like to think about even less. Despite him being one of the only ones who didn't attend yesterday's biosphere simulation exercise, he felt the most affected. In reality, it was the thoughts of a grey-furred mammal with long, black-tipped ears and a bushy tail that kept him awake when the moon loomed at its apex.

He had been drifting off again and subsequently startled awake, his head jerking from his paw as a pillar on the desk, when the clear, soothing female voice of the speaker system announced the end of class.

"The class is hereby over. It is now Eleven Hundred Hours. Lunch will be available until Twelve Hundred Hours."

While most of the cadets had already marched out, he just got finished saving his file and folding the laptop. He and Lester exchanged glances; his was insinuating something along the lines of 'I am genuinely worried about you' with a vague, threatening aura to be felt in addition. Nick nodded confidently, lowing his seat before standing up and leaving the classroom. He'd have to reach his arm all the way above his head to reach it. Fortunately, it opened and closed on a schedule.

In the second-story corridor, the hubbub of conversation and the steps of all manners of paws dominated now, juxtaposed to the serene quiet of class.

As he stood there, he watched as rhinos, tigers, buffalos, elephants, wolves, and all sorts of mega-fauna passed by. Very few of his size remained. Then again, very few remained in total, at least compared to the beginning.

Nick contemplated for a moment what the ZPA would serve today but ultimately frowned; he'd rather be alone.

On the way to the cafeteria, he saw one or the other display case jam-packed full of trophies. Further decorating the wall were pictures, paintings, tapestries, and bookshelves.

One image he'd seen before caught his eye once more, but he quickly averted his gaze once he saw it again. Most images featured either one of the districts of Zootopia, prior graduates, or the premises themselves. What made his teeth ache and his blood boil was Judy Hopps, who appeared in several images and photographs. Some of them consisted of a full-body shot of her in her uniform. Others had her shaking the paw of the Mayor lionheart—that one was taken while he must have still been in office. On yet others, she was standing amidst the other graduates of that year. She was by far the smallest of them all. Yet, despite that, the very reason she appeared so often was her status as valedictorian, especially because she was of the stature she was, prey no less, and that made it considerably worse. 'Of course, a prey would be valedictorian...' he muttered on the inside.

Yet, he knew from personal experience with her and some exclusive insight he had been 'granted' that it was, in fact, not a lie or some political stunt. May lightning strike him down on the very spot, but she had top percentile on the theoretical sections of her graduation while holding the record for the fastest large-mammal take-down to date. He'd seen the video, for fox's sake! Her scores regarding the rest of the physical exercises also far surpassed other students when graded in regard to her species. Of course, she couldn't outsprint a cheetah nor lift more than a bear. That was simply not possible, and therefore everyone was graded to their species when it came to things like these, not some uniform, arbitrary number aimed to somehow include all species but would, in actuality, just favour some while hindering others.

He'd already arrived at his goal, not even having bothered returning to his room first to store his laptop, when he noticed his thoughts had drifted to her again. He was sick of it and just brushed his paw over his scalp. The corridors were almost lifeless now, with only a stray mammal walking to or fro. Inside the square room, he immediately went to one of several of the square-column-shaped devices. He fumbled with a paw in the pockets of his grey slacks. Aha! Thanks to a small step, his ID-Card successfully found its intended crevice he slid it through. The screen switched from its prompt to insert an ID-Card, to show a very familiar-looking fox. The screen read:

Name: Nicholas Piberius Wilde

ID-Number: 2845-9754-6721

Age: 27

Species: Vulpes Vulpes

Diet: Omnivore

Further, the top left denoted the time, 1121. The top right, on the other paw, showed the date, Thursday, the 29th of October, 867 POF.

He swiped to the left, upon which a listing of today's menu appeared. On one side of the screen was the herbivore option. Today's menu featured toasted whole-grain bread together with a mixed salad consisting of arugula, spinach, and endive lettuce, further added to by bell peppers, onions, nuts, and seeds of all kinds. Not a bad meal by any stretch of the imagination. The adjoining preview of the dish was scrumptious; beneath it, all the approximate nutritional information was shown, already adjusted to his species' portion size.

On the right side of the screen was the other option for carnivores. Today's dish was a simple tofu steak with sweet potato fries, ranch dip, and a boiled egg for good measure.

As crude as the imitation of meat was, that picture made his mouth water, so it was honestly no contest as to which meal he'd choose. Granted, he was an omnivore, so he didn't have to stick to one side of the menu. Yet, as a predator, he needed more calories and a lot more protein than prey of similar size. Still, his urges could see right through this crude facsimile, leaving them disappointed.

Serendipity, how he missed a good, bloody steak...

The tasteless, steak-coloured and shaped tofu didn't come close to the real stuff, but he had to agree that it was better for both of them to not serve meat. It wasn't illegal, not at all, but it might be problematic for obvious reasons. Not even speaking of the poor prey witnesses.

Comparing the two nutritional charts confirmed the higher calorie amount and the higher protein-per-calorie ratio of the carnivore option, so choosing that was honestly a no-brainer.

His portion size had automatically been selected for him, and as he didn't feel the need to correct it on the next screen, his last step was the choice to select any kind of personal wish, such as getting more of one ingredient or less of another. Since he was pretty much happy with what the kitchen usually cooked up, he just briskly swiped through the menu, at last selecting a button named 'finished,' to which he got the prompt to head to the lunch mammals handing out the food.

"Katherine! Looking sharp!" he told the polar bear in an apron as he stepped up a single stair step to better view the long display case she stood behind. She only rolled her eyes in response. Her facial expression was always stuck somewhere between neutral and passive-aggressive. Despite that, she was quite friendly, well... it only went so far. He swiped his card in the reader, to which a 'bing' sound played.

"OK, let me see here..." Katherine said to no one in particular, staring down at a screen most likely embedded into the backside of the display he couldn't see. She whispered his order to herself while assembling it with a rod-like fork, tongs, and a ladle, grabbing the ingredients from several of the warming containers between the two of them. Steam rose from tiny gaps where the lid and the container itself didn't seal perfectly airtight, fogging the glass he viewed. She snatched all of the necessary ingredients, placing them one after the other on a plate which she then put on top of the counter before him.

While she was doing that, he grabbed a porcelain mug from the beverage station just to the left of the line of trays, fancying yellow today, all with one paw as he still held onto his laptop under one arm. Nick opted for sparkling water; he was never one for the 'sugary' drinks.

"Here you go," Katherine informed him in a monotone voice. He thanked her and headed off toward their dorm's table.

His ID-Card found its way back into his pockets, and he grabbed hold of the tray with his plate and his cup. He smirked, navigating the white tiles to their table, which was somewhere in the middle; they were dorm number 14, after all.

The ceiling of white tiles was decorated with lights as thin glass panes above each table. They seemed only dimly lit but bathed the room in warm-hued light as he strode through it, idle—and sometimes stifled—conversations going on left and right.

Besides the devices toward the front of the room and the food station to the side, the room was totally filled with square, metallic tables in a square grid with plenty of space to walk between each one. Plenty of personal space. Each side of the table had two of the ZPD's trademark height-adjustable chairs, which seemed to decorate all rooms, bolted to the ground. Several mammals turned their heads to him as he made his way past.

"Hey, Nick, what have you been up to?" Felix, a caracal, asked, cackling.

"Nick...! You look worse than usual," Trisha, a female boar, told him with slight reluctance that he made out to be worry.

"Nick? Is everything alright?" another mammal that he couldn't see and neither put a name to immediately ascertained.

He assured them all quickly that he was well and nothing special had happened. Was he slipping? Perhaps. Normally he could conceal his inner thoughts quite well. When looking down at himself right then, he couldn't see anything unusual. Perhaps his recent insomnia was getting to him...

In polar opposite to that was the unmistakable scent of fear that spread throughout the entire room by both predator and prey, extending to the very corners and the very ceiling he wouldn't reach if he stacked copies of himself ten times over. By now, everyone who was still present had enough fortitude to make it at least a day, or possibly two, without losing it before they had to request bio-time urgently with requests such as, 'Oh, Serendipity, I can't stand this a moment longer. Get me out of here. Get. Me. Out. Please.' He remembered uttering something uncomfortably close to these desperate pleas yesterday. At least he got approved for it in the same minute and was out of the ZPA not ten minutes later.

What he did notice was his shirt clinging again; there was just so much prey... He was so hungry. All those canines and claws that outmatched his own by a factor of two or three didn't particularly help him either. One second he was blissfully ignorant of his draining sanity; the next, he noticed his weariness had already begun to build like crazy again, his battery draining. In moments like these, he was glad for their accommodating policies. Yet, for today, he could hold out—barely. Surely. Probably...

"Hey, Nick," Max teased, pointing the tips of his fork toward the fox. "Thought 'ya'd never show up."

Nick didn't even respond to that. Max had such a way with words sometimes, and engaging just made it worse. Sitting down on one of the two chairs on this side of the table, he saw Max to his left, Rebecca to his right and Sam... Sam was nowhere to be seen, even when he looked around once more.

"Where is that damn stag?" Max wondered, addressing him. The lion lazily shovelled some more of the food inside his muzzle, twirling his fork from side to side now and then.

"I don't know. Probably in the Library again," Nick responded with a shrug, undeterred.

"You sure he 'aint just afraid of getting devoured?"

"Max!" Rebecca raged, to which he just stared at her like she were static on TV.

"The only things he fears being devoured"—he whispered the word—" are his books, Max; he intends to do that himself. Not like anybody could harm him here; those two mean business." The fox gestured toward two wolves clad in riot gear.

One had a coat of the sootiest black, clearly visible behind his visor of plastic, reinforced multiple times, while the other's earthen shades of brown showed where scratch, slash, and impale-prove fabric failed to quite meet their sturdy paw-coverings. The canines were unerring monoliths, sentries in the one place in all of Zootopia where they were needed most, in the place where opposites met. Anarchy loomed, ready to emerge at a wrong twitch. Slit and circle together was a wish for death, a signed testament, a sealed casket. Yet, those eyes were sharp, those postures tense... The ZPD's elongated, standard-issue blue and black tranquiliser rifles they were knighted with, proudly holding them aloft with both paws from the vantage point that were the diagonal corners of the room.

It was easy to think that those postures, those idle conversations all around him, those facades, meant confidence, ease, or even enjoyment, but it was far from any of those; they all feared. He wasn't the only one, nor much better or worse than them. While prey feared predator, predator feared themselves, feared what they thought of, feared what they were capable of.

No. Max. These wolves. All permanently slit-eyed mammals—all predators—on all of Animalia. They all shouldered a burden of unimaginable magnitude. They were brothers in arms in a war that had started before they were born and would only end when time itself ended.

They all thought of it. They all contemplated it. Some of them did more than contemplate when the moment came. They were all terrified of it. It was a never-ending terror of regressing to their primordial form, stilling their hunger just because they couldn't help themselves. What they took from them, they took from themselves, too, in a way. That deep, deep, shameful regret would never be washed away by time, would never be forgotten by memory, would never be erased from the archives. Those wolves were here as much to protect prey as to protect predator.

What was one's life worth when you deducted another from it?

It was meaningless to talk about it, meaningless to cry about; the world was how the world was, and the world wasn't benevolent. They all had their bio times and their social guideline shenanigans, but it didn't change anything. It changed nothing! Nothing!

Predator and prey were different sides of the same coin. Nick, despite himself, had some empathy for prey—he couldn't call himself a proper mammal if he wouldn't do the bare minimum and have empathy—but his own kind bore the motherload of responsibility.

Truly, these wolves were deities, stopping him from racing all the way to the other side of Zootopia in a dead run.

"Besides," Nick went on. "Remember Susan?" Max nodded. "That's how frightened prey looks like. Samuel is barely holding on, just like the rest of us."

The population of their dorm was cut in half as one after the other soon left for their own reasons. There had been a rhino that departed soon after he came. Most likely, he couldn't cope with their regime. A lion and a stag had also been there, both leaving in short order due to instinct-related complications, as so, so many of the others.

Well, that left that one prey in particular who hung on for a remarkable time, but eventually, her mind was rent, her body debilitated despite any and all countermeasures they were afforded. Susan. A rabbit of particularly odd shade. Half of her body was of the purest white, while the other was as dark as night. He'd even talked to her once when she had still been here. He made extra sure to be careful around her, but while she didn't exactly turn tail from him, she trembled, her nose permanently atwitch. He didn't give himself all the credit, of course.

As he soon found out, it was clear who had motivated her to join. Who else than the only other bunny ever enrolled? In contrast to Judy, Susan didn't graduate, far from, actually. It had been a clear case of 'if she can do it, so can I' with her. Obviously, those little TV reports had to have some impact on Zootopia as a whole. So much so that another rabbit joined. She wasn't the only small prey or predator who joined. He saw everything from a weasel to a sand cat to a rabbit and a hare. They all watched as the grindstone that was the academy reduced them to shivering, trembling, claw-and-nail-biting husks. They all quickly learned that predator and prey slept, ate, conversed, and studied in the same rooms. Suffice it to say, she, in particular, ran until her legs gave.

The smaller one was, the worse everything became with regard to instincts. So while he wasn't among the shortest at the date of enrolment, he might very well be now; he couldn't imagine, or, rather, he could very well imagine how mammals shorter than himself coped.

They didn't.

Everything stood in relation to each other. As a predator himself, he wasn't nearly as terrified around other or even bigger predators, which isn't to say he didn't feel a fair bit of drain around them. Prey of that size was better still; they merely commanded immense respect. Smaller prey, however... Suffice it to say he was overjoyed at no prey here being his size or smaller; he couldn't endure their presence for all too long before he was no longer able to predict what he'd do.

Instinct-wise, there was a reason most remaining cadets were of large species, no matter predator or prey. The proportions of everything gave this already expected mega-fauna focus away, even when one ignored the mammals using said facilities.

He didn't like prey, not by a long shot. Still, in the moments he allowed himself to think of it, it really made him consider the feat Judy had pulled off by graduating here. What kind of water was Judy boiled in? No, had been; he daunted her hard. Confronted with instincts, every hour of the day just made it so much more jarring what he had done. He was the cause of her agony. He was the one responsible. There wasn't a worse mammal in the entirety of— He shook his muzzle visibly. That's what thinking of her brought him...

Just... focus on the conversation, Nick.

They just exchanged a glance, and instantly the memory was recalled, the feelings there. Rebecca seemed to think along the same lines, speaking up timidly. "It's a bummer. And all that is the fault of predators like you, Max. You make us look bad. We all have to do our part."

Max took notice of her but then dejected her sentiment, instead shifting to yet another one of his favourite topics. "Is it just me, or is Patricia giving me googley eyes?"

Of course, when he didn't talk about the virtues of being a predator, he informed them of his most recent crush: Patricia, from dorm number 16, two tables over. A fine lioness by all standards with gold-like fur, pretty eyes, and a mean temper.

"Max. This joke only gets funnier each time you tell it," Nick told him without any low or high note to be heard.

"He says it," Rebecca agreed, pointing a paw towards Nick while staring down Max.

No matter how many times the hopeless casanova attempted yet another instance of fraternisation, he was always turned down, a metaphorical plant pot on his head when he came strolling back to their dorm shortly before curfew, but then unerringly trying the next day again with someone else. Max thought he was good-looking, so obviously, the sole reason any lioness was present was just for him to have his pick. There were only so many of his species in the ZPA, so when he got to the end of the line, he just started from the beginning with his flirting.

"Keep telling yourself that, bud," Nick continued, smirking.

"Hey, now don't tell me you're gay," Max smirked with the slightest sentiment of outrage, hidden. His scent confirmed it for Nick.

"Am I looking for a girlfriend?" Nick deflected. "No. No, I am not." As his smirk was upheld, Max grew visibly frustrated and dropped his own, keeping silent from then on.

Again he was thrown back to her. It had been exactly two weeks, and he just couldn't not think of her or something relating to or regarding her.

Two. Weeks.

She hadn't tried calling him. Yet, he was sure she knew his schedule. He always had some time here and there to talk. In the evenings, after dinner, when they went their separate ways before all lights were turned off.

He really had no excuse for not getting back in touch with her. Well, he could leave or just send her a message on her phone—it was interesting what kinds of information was to be gotten when one asked the right questions to the right person—but he didn't feel like doing that either. He tried leaving before, several times, in fact. He had packed his bag already when one memory or another came up when one thing or another benefit of this sprung to mind. Yet, despite it all, he couldn't call her, couldn't text her, couldn't mail her. He felt so vile. He had promised it, but somehow he couldn't get himself to do it. Maybe later this week, later. But this week... this week, for sure.

Before he could chew it through for the dozenth time, as if summoned and emerging from the earth itself, Samuel marched toward them. The stag had this familiar odd gait to himself where he stood ramrod straight, walking as if he were a robot, his muzzle barely agape, their conversation his beckoning call. In both paws, he held his tray with today's herbivore signature dish and a red-glazed mug.

"Nick. Max," he acknowledged them both, punctuating their name with a nod. Coming from anybody else, it would seem exceptionally bland and formal, but that was just the way the stag behaved.

Nick just nodded back, idly impaling a chunk of tofu he had cut off.

"Hey, Sam! Whatcha done? Got more firewood?" Max smirked with a tight muzzle.

Sam let out a huff, seating himself on one of the two seats opposite Nick, who, in turn, sat perpendicular to Max. Whether that huff was due to his exhausted state or his annoyance, Nick couldn't make certain, but he supposed it was both.

For a moment, he just sat there, staring from Nick to Max, to Nick again. "I have retrieved study material to prepare for the upcoming lesson. Books. I have placed them in our resting grounds."

The topic of their upcoming lesson would most likely be a continuation of what they'd done earlier, but Nick wanted to ask his dormmate regardless. Sure, he could look in the ZPA app, but he didn't need to, now, did he? Perhaps there was something else Sam knew.

Ah, who was he kidding? He just wanted to talk, really. That was what you did in a cafeteria, right? He couldn't get away from all of them, so he had played the role of 'engageable fox confidant' thus far. Before he could utter his question, however, Max asked the very same one.

Sam's response came as expected. "In the two lessons left today, we will start with police codes. Mister Lester is in possession of an exquisite document. I am elated to begin."

Lester wasn't always the friendly type and didn't behave equally on any two given days, but he had a sort of conviction to him with his springy gait, coupled with the acuteness of his words, all spoke of his competence. He was by no means reliant on his resources, and everyone knew that.

Now Nick chided in, turning to Max with a mischievous smile, unable to help himself. "Well, there is a thing called listening to the teacher. You should try that sometime..." He mumbled, adding, "Also, the ZPA app is a thing."

He feared having overstepped his boundary when Max just frowned at him. Usually, he wasn't like that and was up for such jokes. It wasn't like Max was terrible in class; that wasn't it. Nick wasn't making fun of his performance. Nick... uh... Nick was trying to—

"Ha!" Max laughed, his frown turning upside down. "Good one." He slapped the fox on the shoulder with a giant paw, nearly sending his chair spinning on its axis and his mind spinning while he lay on the floor. Fortunately, neither happened. Such physical contact wasn't exactly condoned, but not forbidden either. He saw one of the guards in the corner raise their rifle a smidgen before they lowered it again. Sheesh. Attentive as ever.

The ZPD's philosophy was something he rather enjoyed. Everything was neat and tidy, clean and reflective. Every thing had its spot, and every spot had its thing. It made total sense. Nothing was wasted. Everything was utilised. He liked that. He really liked that.

The cafeteria right here, for example. There were eight mammals in a dorm—well, had been—so every table had precisely eight chairs. Every dorm had its table. Very logical. In the very middle of their table was a white number imprinted, a '14'. They were in the 14th dorm in room 014, so their table also had a 14 on it.

After some time had passed, Max piped up again. "Can't wait for lunch."

Nick looked up from his plate, facing the lion. "We are literally eating right now; what's the matter? Still don't like the classes?"

"Nah, just we predators gotta eat, you know?" he told him, flashing his teeth. "Can't bulk without proper nutrition and all that. You gotta understand that."

Nick just stared at him for a time with a slightly shocked expression, his ears flat, while Sam shuddered uncontrollably before averting his gaze. Slowly but surely, Max noticed what was wrong. "Oh fuck. I'm so sorry," he apologised, his slit eyes darting everywhere.

"You know, they can't kick you for it..." Nick stated, obviously. "Though it'll be rather funny seeing your body full of dozens of tranq darts."

"You're a dick," Rebecca told him. "Don't you ever think of the prey?"

"You could go savage for real when Mister Ornate-Furniture over there flinches the wrong way," Nick joked.

"I know. I know. Don't need to go all lecturing on me. I'm sorry, OK?" Max told them apologetically. "I'm sorry, Sam, alright?"

Nick turned to Sam now. "Sorry about that one. Didn't mean it in a mean way." The stag seemed uncaring one way or the other, just nodding to both their apologies as he so often does. Nick did get carried away once or twice.

Sam found his voice now, too, taking a shaky inhale. "It—" he began but then broke off, clearing his throat almost violently. Sam was good at hiding his responses, but they still affected him. "It is fortunate they haven't witnessed it. It would perhaps be grounds for an interrogation, Max."

Nick, meanwhile, had already finished his plate and returned it to the tray holder. That was certainly easier than trying to deliver it while all... however many there were left at this point to do so at the same time. Well, there were like 30 dorms with a capacity of eight cadets each, so that meant 30 times eight equals a maximum capacity of 240. Now, after the second 're-dorming', as he called it, that being transferred from one dorm to another to avoid having literally one cadet in a dorm meant for eight since all others had left, there couldn't have been more than 30 of them, and that number was still declining.

Soon after he sat down again, metal struck metal repeatedly; the bell rang. "See you later, guys!" Nick smirked at them while already backing away. They had a couple of hours of free time before class started. It was meant to be used to relax, reprieve, and mostly study, honestly. Due to his not-studying inclination, the world was his oyster. Well, leave he could not, but besides that, there were all sorts of communal rooms he could visit, libraries he could browse through. He didn't feel like doing any of that, however.

He made his way to his bed, slouched in a corner with his laptop on his lap. All alone, he opened his device, the classical Xunil operating system having finished its boot-up sequence within five seconds of turning it on. As any self-respecting fox with his kind of orientation would have, his wallpaper consisted of a busty vixen laying in a supine position, slightly rotated toward the camera. Somehow, he didn't share the same enthusiasm toward the picture he once had.

He just stared at it. Two whole hours. Two hours until class began.

Sam read somewhere on his bunk while Rebecca and Max both headed off to somewhere.

When his smartphone notified him of the next lesson starting in five minutes, he jostled awake, noticing that his dormmates had already left.

He took his laptop and dashed with open eyes through the complex, all the way to the room he had been in before lunch. The fox took his seat amidst his dormmates.

"Quiet, everyone. Quiet!" Lester told them all. As all gradually quieted down, he continued with his speech. "Last lesson, we talked about the ZPD's radio. Now that we have an understanding of the object itself and its history—And do keep that all in mind; it'll be in the next test and naturally in your exit exams!—we have to learn about the proper procedure and the codes used in and around Zootopia.

"You are in luck; thanks to the telecommunications law of 56, all districts in Zootopia and some of the closest cities outside use the same codes, so you have to only learn one set. Back then, the districts all had their own justice system and procedures.

"Anyways. I've uploaded the file to the cloud. Please save yourself a local copy. We'll proceed in five minutes."

Nick did just that, as did everyone else. The ZPA in district one wasn't the only police academy in Zootopia, but it was by far the largest and most prestigious. It wasn't like they were kits forced to go to high school. Well, he was the closest to that, he reminded himself.

Regardless of that, he was soon greeted with a document so long it made the square on the scrollbar to the right seem as a tiny blip. It featured all sorts radio-code related information. For one, there was a 'compact' list of all codes spanning several pages alone. After that, each code was given its own page, with some having several paragraphs of text containing detailed explanations of their use cases. It went so far as to link other similar codes in the description, clearing up misconceptions or explaining thoroughly how and why this code was used in a given instance and not the other. The text program loaded for a good two seconds when he clicked on one such link, sending him halfway through the document.

Granted, it appeared as if some of the codes were just slight variations of others, having postfixes or different letters to denote a certain district or whether the suspect is predator or prey, and all such tiny details. They had considerably shorter descriptions, consisting more often than not of a few pointed sentences with a link back to the more prominent code. Sure, these were easy to comprehend, but it was still one that one needed to remember.

Max, Rebecca, and Nick all looked up at the same time, trying to ascertain the other's reactions. The whole class looked at each other. Most of them shared Max's gobsmacked sentiment. Rebecca shook her head in disbelief, the wheel of her mouse scrolling furiously as there was no end in sight. Nick, Nick felt much the same as Max, but he didn't want to look the part. Sam? Sam, of course, looked as if he'd seen this all before and was disappointed that the document wasn't more detailed.

"Yes, I've expected as much," Lester voiced loudly, immediately garnering all attention in the room. "Why don't we just start from the top? If someone has a question, please wait until I'm done with a page."

The lesson later that day was just boring. They just continued going down that long, long list of codes while Lester provided answers to any questions that arose despite the foolproof wording of the document.

At one point, he felt the urge to just stand up and walk out of class, pack his things and then walk straight on until he was miles away from her. On the other hand, as much effort as all of this took, it was at least somewhat interesting.

So when the bell of the last lesson that day finally rang, and Lester told them, "Goodbye," Nick was quick to get to the cafeteria and eat dinner. Finally, finally, he had free time again, over two hours of it, no less.

Nick passed the time on Zootube while Sam read the new books he'd taken with him earlier that day. Rebecca went to one room or another; he hadn't asked, and he honestly didn't care either. Max was still here for a change, in his bunk above the fox.

His mood only got worse; he saw a bunny in one of the digitnails on Zootube by pure chance. He folded the laptop with a grunt.

"Video not to your liking, Foxy? Or did your GF break up with you?" Max sneered from the bunk above his own. He was most likely just doing this or that before heading out, too. "Do you even have someone at home?"

"No! I don't!" he told him, audibly annoyed. Something was wrong with how everyone got to him nowadays. Max was just insufferable. It was incredible how focused Max was on this topic. "What about you, tiger?" he quipped with a bit of malice palpable.

"You know I'm a lion, right?" he deadpanned.

"It's an expression," he told him in much of the same tone.

"Well, no," he admitted. "Recently broke up myself, actually."

"Oh, I'm sorry about that," Nick grumbled. He'd like to make of him for that, but even as much of a punctured bucket as Max was, he did feel bad for him.

"Yeah..." he just said, then.

Nick wasn't looking for a girlfriend. Foxes had that tendency to become clingy. Mate for life and all that. Traditions, rites etc. He respected it all; he lived the same way, actually, so besides the occasional tumble between the sheets, which was made to be absolutely clear to be no more than that, he didn't have any interest. A relationship meant sharing details, and he didn't like that. He was a one-mammal band. Even the non-commital type of thing he had lost interest in lately. Was he just depressed? He didn't know, and it didn't matter; he had more important matters to attend to. He still wanted to leave, but he just couldn't. He still needed to talk to Judy, but he just couldn't.

Whether to distract Nick or himself, he didn't know, but Max was right back to his usual demeanour. "Tell me, why don't I show how a real predator hunts? Tell me I'm looney, but 'cha need bio time. You look half-mad already."

Nick just stared at him for a good moment. How would he even respond to that? With that statement, he was condescending, boastful, surprisingly observant, and absolutely correct; he did feel very much on edge—he did have to give him that. Despite himself, he chose to be honest. Why not? What does he matter? What does any of this matter if I leave soon anyway? "Yeah. Well, I've only been yesterday. Not like I always go to those places either."

"Yesterday? Don't worry about that; I go daily. You know, the stress really gets to 'ya, don' it?"

"I guess, yeah. Well, I'll think of it." He had zero intention of following through with that.

"Awesome! See you!" he told him as he marched out of the room in long strides, presumably to the community room. Nick waved him goodbye, having zero intentions of going there either.

He lay akimbo on his cool sheets, sinking a bit into the mattress. He just stared. He stared for a while. He could try to sleep; what else was there to do? His limbs felt sore from the couple of days ago their last exercise had been. Perhaps it was due to his sleep, too.

Sleep was few and far between lately, his concentration low, and his mood erratic. These sessions of existential crises in solitude didn't exactly help. Sam was still there, but he might as well not be; besides the occasional page turning, he made no sound. Each of the fourteen days that had passed made it worse, for it had fourteen whole days. Each day of inaction was as a searing iron melted to his forehead. He had promised. He kept his promises. Yet... No matter. Soon. Very soon. But could he? No. No, he had to. He had to... He...

He woke. The moonlight shone through the open window, the cool midnight breeze causing the fabric of his sheets to move.

Nick stared at nothing. While he stared at nothing, he saw everything.

When he thought back, really thought back to his old life, he could only see sorrow. He felt the rush of adding an ace to a game where it didn't belong, his face straight, his smirk honeyed. The bets, the deals, the bargains, the contracts, the cheats, the lies, the threads, the hate... his mother—all of it! Ever since the case, he couldn't look back at any of it without ingesting something that would knock him off his feet first to soften the following kick to his guts.

Clearly, clearly, he couldn't go back to that anymore. As much good as he had done, an equal part of bad he did too. One party had to lose for another to gain something; that was the way how it worked, after all.

Yet, what other option did he have? Staying here instead of going back—perhaps he'd turn into a puppetmaster, see what that was like. Perhaps that was more bearable. He doubted it.—entailed further contact with her eventually, not speaking of becoming an Officer, a part of the system he so despised. 'We won't give a loan to a predator', they'd say. 'Has that fox threatened you?' they'd ask them when he had barely talked to that prey, stooping as always, his head nearly splitting in two in an effort to maintain his prey etiquette, his non-threatening posture and demeanour.

The further along he got, the more reasons he could find to stay here. The company was decent, the topics of value to him more often than not, and the whole eating-and-sleeping-next-to-prey thing? Well, he did learn some more about them. He was a fox who knew of the value of information.

But, again, what was his boon, was also his curse. To his sincere regret, he knew the statistics concerning the ZPA. Less than one in ten mammals who enlisted graduated here, and the fact that he was still here made him believe he could actually make it as well.

Either he stayed here, graduated as an Officer and worked the rest of his days in the very system he loathed, hating himself every day, most likely partnered with a prey mammal that he felt like devouring as often as not, a prey mammal he had nearly devoured before. He couldn't trust what he'd do when he saw her again, what his savage side might force him to do if he let it slip for a second. It was like that for all prey like her, but with their history factored in, he had no clue what could happen.

Or he could resign here, go back to what he had been doing before, and hate his guts all day, every day as well. He realised, as the cherry on top, whether he'd pull the strings or was the puppet himself, he would bet everything he had on her finding him either way, sooner or later. After that, she wouldn't part with him easily, asking all sorts of questions.

When both choices were as bad as these, which one would one choose? Was it really a choice, or was his fate sealed either way?

Again, he lay, contemplating. It wasn't like the choice were simply a business deal, a contract. Two or more parties all had their obligations, optimally, all gaining something. This right here was something else. Everything was organic, malleable—undulating, contorting behind his back. Nothing was cut and dry.

The conditions and terms changed whenever he looked away. No matter from which angle he scrutinised the document of dozens of papers, he couldn't be certain what would await him on either path. One thing he was sure of, however.

No matter what he'd choose, nothing would be like before. He'd make a mistake either way. He'd be unhappy either way.

He'd wasted too many hours contemplating already. So, when the sun peeked from its hiding spot, and the sound of metal on metal rang out again, he had formed his decision, made a plan. A hard one it had been, yet necessary it was all the same. He'd see it through—to the end.

X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X-X

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